


you'll be in my nightmare tonight

by americangothic



Series: Oh Worm? [5]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Betrayal, Betrayal By Friends/Family, Blood, Brainwashing, Gen, Gore, Yikes!, haha Fuck!, minor edits done on 9/15/18, not lloyd-friendly, this got. really dark sorry, uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 03:44:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12645417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americangothic/pseuds/americangothic
Summary: Lloyd didn't like sleeping. He’d never liked it much, but after the nightmares started, sleep became unbearable.(his friends advance, and lloyd begins screaming, because it's hard not to when you're being torn from limb to limb and swords are being driven through your gut and please stop please stop please please you guys please stop please-)





	you'll be in my nightmare tonight

**Author's Note:**

> alright i got carried away on this so uh. tw for blood, gore, implied character death, graphic descriptions of violence, guns, uhhh the ninja being dicks, brainwashing/possession/magic gas that messed up the ninja i guess

Lloyd didn't like sleeping. He’d never liked it much, but after the nightmares started, sleep became unbearable.

(Morro, grinning at him as the air drained from his lungs and the green gi contracted, breaking his ribs. Slamming into the ceiling and staring down at Chen fearfully. Falling off his dragon and tumbling downward, limbs flailing.)

Recently, Lloyd got another dream to add to his collection. The newest gang of enemies, running around Ninjago City with his father’s visage emblazoned on their outfits.

(They corner him against a building, black stripes of their masks burning a hole through his emerald eyes. Slowly, they take them off to reveal the familiar faces of his friends. The green mask is suddenly in his hands, and bile rises in Lloyd's throat. “Go away,” he stammers, the cold brick of the wall fixing him in place. His friends advance, and Lloyd begins screaming, because it's hard not to when you're being torn from limb to limb and swords are being driven through your gut and please stop please stop please please you guys please stop please-)

One morning Lloyd woke in a puddle of sweat, his limbs shaking and mouth open in a scream. It was nothing, he told himself, it was another nightmare. Nothing to be worried about. His skin tingled as if to prove him wrong, and Lloyd's stomach twisted uncomfortably. He eased himself out of bed, seconds later realizing that he didn't hear anyone else awake.

Nobody else was awake, or walking through the hallways. As Lloyd warily crept through the temple, he felt something that could be wind and he flipped around, senses on high alert.

Nothing.

Lloyd relaxed slightly and turned back around, continuing towards the common area. When he got there, he wasn't surprised to see nobody there. It was silent, and the only thing he could see out of the ordinary was the shards of glass from a broken bowl. He reached out to touch one and flinched back as it stung his skin, drawing drops of blood to the surface. “Ow,” he whispered.

There was a rustle behind him.

Lloyd swiveled around just in time to avoid the broken nunchuck hurled at his face. He gaped at Jay, who was holding the other half of the broken weapon in his hand.

“Jay? What- what are you-" Lloyd asked, cut off by the other half of the nunchucks hitting him in the gut. “Uhhhh, alright then,” Lloyd muttered, and jumped backwards over the couch. Jay growled and sent a flash of lightning at him, to which Lloyd responded by ducking backwards and sprinting out of the room, making it halfway down a hallway before coming to a stop. He could still hear Jay bumping around in the common area, but this time the blue ninja didn't pursue him.

“Alright, Jay, what the hell?” Lloyd muttered to himself as he listened for the other inhabitants of the temple. “You're obviously trying to hurt me for some unknown reason. And your nunchucks are snapped in half. That's, uh. Not good.”

If something strong enough to break Jay’s nunchucks had gotten into the temple and somehow turned Jay on him, then it probably affected the rest of the team too. Which meant that the rest of the team were…

Lloyd didn't want to think about that.

“Alright, I'm gonna get to the weapons room and see…” Lloyd's sentence trailed off as he realized something was behind him. He spun around to see Cole and immediately went into a fighting stance. Cole didn't move.

“Hey, Cole, buddy? Are you alright?” Lloyd murmured, keeping his eyes fixed on Cole. The longer he studied the earth ninja, the more things Lloyd noticed. His face was just slightly off, and the usual glimmer of light in his eyes was gone. There was something mechanical about his stance, like he wasn't really aware of what he was doing. It was almost the same as Jay had been, Lloyd realized.

Then Cole charged at him.

Lloyd didn't have enough time to dodge as his teammate barreled into him, his shoulder digging into Lloyd's stomach. The green ninja was carried forward a few feet before hitting the wall with a loud crunch. “Sh- sh- shit,” Lloyd gasped as he felt at least one of his ribs break. “Cole- what the- what the shit-"

The earth ninja stepped back and, using one hand to hold Lloyd to the wall, began pummeling him. Lloyd groaned, feeling blood from a cut somewhere on his forehead rush down his face and neck and fill his nose with the smell of iron.

After several punches, Lloyd shot blindly at Cole with his green powers. Based off the scream he heard, and the fact that he was no longer being held to the wall, Lloyd figured that he'd landed a hit. “S’rry,” he mumbled, pushing himself off the wall and stumbling away from Cole's stunned form.

Lloyd spun around a few times to orient himself, making sure he was still on course to the weapons room. He shuddered, realizing by now someone else had probably gotten there and-

He had to make sure they couldn't hurt anyone. Lloyd wasn't sure when that became his mission, and he wasn't sure when his team became they, but he knew those were facts and he needed facts right now. Whoever he found in the weapons room, whoever was roaming the temple, he had to make sure they were contained.

He turned the corner to the weapons room, immediately pulling into a fighting stance and preparing for another enemy.

(Another friend, he told himself. These were his friends.)

Nobody was there.

Lloyd entered the room cautiously, tense and watching for any movement. There was nothing. He picked up one of the sword handles on the floor, the rest of the blade shattered against something. Huh.

The rest of the weaponry was disabled similarly, sword blades shattered and nunchucks snapped. He saw a pair of Zane’s shurikens on a bench, points dulled to a blunt pieces of metal. He could probably stab himself with that and it wouldn't even break the skin.

Then Nya picked them up, and Lloyd was suddenly extremely glad they were dull.

He hadn’t seen the water ninja come in, nor had he heard her. Either way, that was not the issue at hand. The issue at hand was that Nya wasn't attacking, but looking for weapons that weren't destroyed and discarding the ones that were. Knowing Nya, she'd probably be able to find a fully operational tank in this mess.

Lloyd slowly began to back away from her, hoping she wouldn't catch him while he planned his escape. He made it about halfway to the door before Nya’s head snapped to the side and she locked eyes with him. “Oh my god,” Lloyd whispered, suddenly terrified. “Ohmygodohmygodohmyg-"

Nya slammed into him, one of their few pistols in her hand. Lloyd struggled, pinned to the wall again, and she readjusted her grip so that her hand was wrapped around his neck. “N- a- Ny- Nya-" Lloyd choked out, trembling as his throat was compressed under the pressure.

She brought the pistol up to his head.

Lloyd's heart skipped a beat as he felt the barrel of the gun slide against the blood coating his head. “Oh my god,” he squeaked again, staring at Nya’s blank eyes-

She fired.

Lloyd had never been so relieved in his life to hear the clicking of a gun out of bullets. But still, his stomach twisted and he felt like he was going to throw up. Nya growled and threw the pistol away, which gave Lloyd just enough time to swing his leg behind hers and knock her onto her back before darting out of the weapons room and sprinting down the hallway. He can hear Nya get up and give chase, snarling at him furiously.

Lloyd saw something on the side of the hallway and nearly tripped over it, staring in shock at Zane’s immobile body. “Zane? Zane?” Lloyd asked, leaning down to shake the nindroid’s shoulder. “Zane, oh my god, did they get you?”

Lloyd turned Zane’s arm over to see a note, scribbled in frantic handwriting that looks vaguely like Jay’s and scotch taped to the robotic arm.

_We deactivated Zane and disabled the weapons after the gas hit. Stay safe, Misako and Wu are getting help._

“Alright. I'm- I'm the only one here who's- who's sane, I guess.” Lloyd muttered. “Alright I can handle this, I can-"

Nya slammed into him, knocking the green ninja back several feet. He slid to a stop on the floor, groaning. “Oh my god, Nya, I've already broken like three ribs today-"

Jay planted his foot firmly on Lloyd's back, and Lloyd winced as it dug into his ribs. Nya came closer, the same blank look on her eyes still. Mechanically, Jay tugged Lloyd upward and punched him across the face, leaving no pain, but instead a stinging sensation. Lloyd touched his fingers to his face and felt a red-hot pain, realizing Jay must've shocked him and temporarily fried his nerves when he punched.

“Son of a-" Lloyd murmured as Nya grabbed one of the broken arrowheads she had taken from the weapons room and drove it into his leg. He spun backwards and landed a fair distance away, swerving down a different hallway and ignoring the burning pain in his thigh. Once he had gotten far enough, Lloyd collapsed to the ground and stared at his leg. Pulling off a piece of fabric from his bloodied and torn shirt, Lloyd made a makeshift tourniquet above the wound. He then pulled the arrowhead out, biting back a scream of pain.

“Dammit,” Lloyd whispered to himself. He shut his eyes, leaning his hand back against the wall. “God dammit,” he mumbled again.

There’s a loud crash from the doorway, and Lloyd turned to see Cole wielding what looked like the whole silverware drawer. Immediately getting up and running backwards (well, more like limp-jogging, but you get the idea), Lloyd is narrowly missed by a salad knife, and then a cleaver. “Holy shit!” Lloyd yelled as he saw Cole's bag full of sharp things from the kitchen.

“Alright, listen, I'd love to stay and chat, but I-" Lloyd dodged a fork, wincing as it grazed his leg. “I really don't wanna get killed, so-" Cole growled and Lloyd felt the ground beneath him shake. Tumbling backwards, he saw a huge pillar of earth shoot through the floor. Cole scowled as he saw Lloyd didn't get stabbed and was racing away as fast as he could. “Bye!” Lloyd called back to his teammate before running.

Lloyd darted into the hallways and hobbled through them, heading back towards his room. Alarms were going off in his head, pointing out how Nya could be behind that corner, or Cole might be right in that shadow, or Kai could-

He hadn't seen Kai yet.

Lloyd's breath caught in his throat, and he slowed to a stop in front of his door. He hadn't seen Kai yet in this death trap of ninjas. Where was he? Maybe he made it out safe, or maybe-

Maybe he was inside of the room, waiting on Lloyd's bed. Maybe he hadn't been affected by the gas, and wanted to play a new video game with Lloyd (or maybe he had been affected, and was waiting to kill Lloyd and wrap his hands around his neck and feel the life drain from the green ninja, the same way Morro wanted to, the same way the Overlord wanted to, the same way everyone wanted to, it seemed).

Lloyd took a deep breath and swung the door open. He fell into a fighting stance and prepared for one of his teammates to jump out at him with knives or fists or empty guns.

Nobody was there.

Lloyd sighed in relief and stepped inside the room, laughing slightly as he sat down on his bed. According to his bedside clock, the last time he had been in here was only a few hours ago. It felt like longer than that, to be honest. Without any breakfast and the whole murderous teammates thing, Lloyd was tired enough to just go to sleep and not wake up for a while.

Lloyd's skin tingled, and his ribs twinged, and his black eye throbbed, and he dodged a moment too late. Kai’s sword drove through his arm, and Lloyd screamed. The blade was pulled out, and Lloyd bit back another scream as he felt a warm river of blood douse his arm, dripping down onto his bedsheets.

Twisting around, Lloyd came face to face with his brother. “Kai,” he whispered in a trembling voice. The fire ninja stared at Lloyd blankly, his face the same as their other teammates. They stand like that for a few moments, Lloyd's blood dripping off of Kai’s sword. Then, Kai’s expression contorted into a look of pure hatred, hatred and disgust aimed at Lloyd and only Lloyd. Lloyd's stomach twisted, and for the millionth time that day he thought he was going to throw up.

Then Kai reached out and grabbed Lloyd’s hand, and bent it so that all five fingers snapped.

Lloyd cut off a howl of pain, knowing he can't draw any more of them towards his room. He can't let them know he's here. “You-" he whispered. “You broke- you broke my fingers, asshat," Lloyd murmurs, anticipating Kai’s next move.

The sword swung forward and at the same time, Lloyd's mangled and broken hand swung forward to catch it. His fingers are broken anyway, what does another scar matter? The blade cut into Lloyd’s palm, but the green ninja keeps his grip steady. Kai looks shocked, like this is the first time he's ever been beaten.

Lloyd pulled the sword out of Kai’s grip and throws it to the side the same way Nya threw the empty pistol to the side, the same way Zane must've dropped to the ground after switching off his power source. Lloyd stood unsteadily, facing Kai with as much power as he could muster, and used his unmaimed hand to punch Kai as hard as he could.

Kai stumbled back, and Lloyd could see his resolve harden. He inhaled and exhaled, then swung at Kai again. The fire ninja caught his fist and Lloyd internally shrugged. Worth a try, at least. Kai flung Lloyd into the wall and Lloyd felt his breath leave him. He opened his mouth a few times like a fish out of water before his lungs finally refilled with air. Kai advanced on him and suddenly Lloyd was pinned to the wall for what was it, the third time today? C'mon guys, it wasn't even noon yet.

Kai punched Lloyd the first time. Lloyd noticed that he had dropped the sword on the ground, and chuckled through his puffy lip. He wondered which one of the ninja would have to scrub his blood out of the carpet.

Kai punched Lloyd the second time. After Wu and Misako found a cure, they would probably wonder who's blood was smeared all over the walls. Lloyd wondered if he could lie and say it was Dareth’s.

Kai punched Lloyd the fifth time. The green ninja was now the dark reddish-brown ninja, because hell if Lloyd could see the green on his suit through all the blood.

Kai punched Lloyd the… ninth, was it? Yeah, it was probably the ninth time. On the sixth time, part of Lloyd's nose was on the floor. Hopefully it wasn't an important part.

Kai punched Lloyd the seventeenth time. Lloyd tries to said “If you didn’t like my boyfriend, you could've just told me” to lighten up the mood. It comes out as a pained moan, and Lloyd feels another of his ribs crack.

Lloyd has stopped counting the times Kai has punched him. He is reluctant to accept it, but it doesn't matter.

Lloyd is going to die here.

The skin around his eyes has swelled up so much that Lloyd cannot see his brother's face (it is better that way). His lips are so bloodied that he can't tell whether the blood dripping from his mouth are from his toothless gums or his lips.

Lloyd doesn't register when his teammates enter the room. He doesn't register when his jaw is dislocated. He doesn't register when his last rib cracks. He doesn't register when his fingers go numb and his arm is literally coated in blood. He doesn't register when the arrow wound in his leg is attacked by fists that will surely leave yellow and purple and red and green, a multicolored pattern of bruised skin. He doesn't register when his head is slammed back against the wall and his eyes drift shut.

  
Lloyd is not one to accept death, usually. Usually. But this is not usually.

**Author's Note:**

> this is just named "YOINKS!" in my documents  
> tumblr is robbierottenisagayicon


End file.
